Apr. 19, 2013

Written by

Students should be able to ...

Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence. Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization and analysis of content. Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details and well-structured event sequences. Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization and style are appropriate to task, purpose and audience. Develop and strengthen writing by planning, revising, editing, rewriting or trying a new approach. Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing and to interact and collaborate with others. Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects based on focused questions, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation. Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, assess the credibility and accuracy of each source and integrate the information while avoiding plagiarism. Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection and research. Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of tasks, purposes and audiences. Source: The Ohio Department of Education, the Common Core

More

ADVERTISEMENT

Northwest Local Schools is making big changes in its three middle schools to get its adolescent students writing papers before they get to high school.

A new course called the Fifth Core will get students researching and writing papers in a daily class created by adding 30 minutes onto existing English classes. However, since the district doesn’t have enough English teachers to go around, social studies and science teachers will be part of the writing team, said Mark Farmer, the district’s assistant superintendent of curriculum.

The writing course is one of the byproducts of the national move toward Common Core academic standards.

Because Ohio, Kentucky and most other states are switching to the new, some say tougher academic standards, districts like Northwest believe they have to rethink writing – including when and how much of it to assign – to meet Common Core requirements.

The ultimate goal is to graduate students who are ready to produce college research papers or business letters, product manuals and other technical writing products for their careers.

“The Common Core standards have told us what we already know, but they’ve made it more clear: We have to prepare our kids for college success and for high school success,” Farmer said. “These new standards require our kids to do research, to look up sources and think about them, make an opinion and put it in writing in a clear way.”

Northwest is one of several districts across Southwest Ohio and Northern Kentucky to say they’re beefing up writing instruction, which many say has been waning since Ohio stopped testing writing.

Jeff Wadl, who teaches social studies at Lakota West High, expects he’ll give more writing assignments and will keep student writing samples “to show the progress of each student individually,” he said.

“Teachers will have to keep portfolios on each student and, yes, it means substantially more grading and documentation,” he said.

Ohio used to be one of only a few states that maintained annual writing tests once the federal No Child Left Behind laws made math and reading tests paramount, said Timothy Shanahan, a University of Illinois-Chicago professor of urban education whose focus is literacy.

Ohio’s writing tests for grades 1-3 were diagnostic – designed to help teachers see what students knew but not counting on state report cards.

Only in fourth, seventh and 10th-grades did students take writing tests that mattered to district and school report cards. In recent years even those fell off, partly to save the state money. Now only the high school writing test on remains.

“This has been a longstanding problem in U.S. schools,” said Shanahan, citing studies from 30 to 40 years ago on how much writing was assigned in elementary schools.

“The amount of writing in elementary schools was very low,” he said. “Initially when states put in statewide testing, writing went up, but in the past decade … schools and states thought they could drift away from it.”

From the 1970s into the 1990s, he said, a lot of student writing wasn’t graded, with teachers sometimes not taking it seriously enough. Students were asked to write about their opinions or their experiences, he said, in journal entries and personal papers.

It was less common to assign formal research papers and essays, sometimes called public writing, he said.

With luck, the Common Core “may nudge us back” to make writing a priority, he said.

Farmer said every middle school student in the Northwest district will produce about six papers, some five pages long, over their middle school years. They also will research and write about careers in which they have an interest.

The Common Core standards in many grade levels require students to argue points and back them up with evidence, often from informational texts and historic documents.

“We want kids to do more public writing and collecting information and writing syntheses and analyses,” said Shanahan, who revised proposed drafts of Common Core tests. “We want to see more writing about what you read rather than what is in your head.” ■

I report on what is happening in schools, how your education dollars are being spent, and how well students are educated. I am at damos@enquirer.com